Tag: Mayrig

This is my Armenian birth & baptism certificate. It was officiated by the Greek Apostolic Church. As a philosophical Abrahamic monotheist, I celebrate this part of my culture as much as my Islamic side.

If there is anything I am paranoid about it is about my fate.

But I have faith.

My faith tells me that there are forces – the agents, after me.

This world is similar to the movie, the Matrix, in some ways. In other ways it is not – naturally.

But time is ticking. There are agents. There are phones. I’m in the white room now. But outside – we have to wait till we get to His throne.

I know where I am headed – but why the need to open up?

Like I said. My story begins with Riyadh. But my family. The KRIKORIAN story started much earlier.

Time are changing. I was supposed to have more resources. My family too.

But we were stripped. It began in Turkey. Like in Germany. The collectivists came after us – demanding they get provisions.

What happened to a world where men sought provisions from God and kept their mouths quiet? Today people complain of systems – the problem is people.

You see what I am realizing is you are what you believe; which impacts what you do; and what you know.

But there are inevitabilities of character – these are what distinguish us from one another. I see devils denying that very reality.

The reality is that, envy is a social phenomenon ailing the world.

That is why capitalism and freedom are necessary.

But there is a vast difference between these ideas and outright racism.

The republican party in America is a group of angry, white men without any respect for personal responsibility, which the so-called right-wing supposedly represents.

Today, hope rests with non-populistic centrists, and that cannot exist on the right side of American political spectrum because it has given way to populism, racism and fear, where as internal disagreements in the democratic branch are merely ideological.

We were even considered to be loyal to the Ottomans, referred to as millet-i sadıka by the Sultan. That is why the modern Turkish creation is an imperial endeavor – a British experiment, as usual, because nationalism results in ethnic, religious and ideological division.

Racism against Armenians is historically engrained.

From the Hamidian Massacres to the Armenian Genocide.

Comparable to Nazi hatred of the Jewish people.

But this isn’t about comparing it is about understanding.

The absence of a modern, liberalized, practical and refined Islamic authority has long been absent. This has encouraged radicalism and primitiveness, and hate.

Turkish nationalism is largely an imperial task of the West – seeking to impose its influence in the region. Orientalism says that Islam could be more developed if it weren’t for colonialism. I wonder, perhaps if the Middle East would even be as “Islamic” so to speak if it weren’t for a history of Western involvement. Ultimately, what determines a nation’s ability to endure, which the Armenians have been able to do, with the blessing of God, is its unity.

The Armenian nation suffered as a result of this forsaken tragedy.

From the top tiers of Armenian society to the bottom. But even the Ottoman Empire itself, the expansion of Islam since the 7th century, greatly undermined Armenian sovereignty.

Islamism – is not new. It is old. Modern nationalism in Islamic societies, is more developed Islam; whereas Islamism is a primitive understanding – innately regressive. The absence of a viable moderate, tolerant and modern Islamic authority, male or female, has cast a dark, fundamentalistic shadow upon Islam which vindicates the narrative that Islam cannot modernize. My mother is a muslim. Philosophically I would consider myself muslim, an adherer of the true Qur’an, but equally I am Christian. More importantly, I am neither, but instead a believer in God, the Creator, and eternal philosophy, or wisdom. The rest is politics – and to be frank; imperialism – political hubris. The sort of force which violates balances of power. The modern nation, Iran, Armenia, Turkey, is disrupted by religious, ideological and ethnocentric viciousness which violates sovereignty and practicality. The cause of this is a blatant American and European disregard for human rights outside their borders. It has propped up radicalism, ultranationalism and prevents individual and national prosperity, thus limiting global competition, and guaranteeing hegemony, even when undeserved, to the West. That isn’t capitalism – that is totalitarianism.

Those who are unable to modernize and adapt to tolerance are gripped by a stubborn ego that latches on to contradictory but nonetheless vociferous and violent ideologies.

But in Syria too, they came for us. Because Syria, unlike most Islamic countries, has been political aligned with anti-colonial states, thus barring it from access to the so-called international community. Now, they’ve come for Syria in the same manner as they came for Iraq and Libya, under the premise of liberalization, despite rampant hypocrisy.

We watch global destruction from America, comfortably, which saddens me deeply. My only hope is that I can alleviate the suffering by fulfilling my individual potential in America, so that I may bring attention to their plight abroad, whether in the Caucasus, or in the Middle East.

Let it be known that we the Armenians, the Muslims and the Jews have suffered similar fates, to varying degrees of course, but still, equally atrocious and appalling. There are many more groups to be included, but these pertain directly to me. I would like to add also the struggle of African-Americans particularly [and all American minorities] who have endured similar if not worse suffering – and who have gifted me with the privilege of getting to know their culture and its immense richness and quality.

But the problem in Turkey was not Islam versus Christianity. This is modern propaganda. Islam and Christianity’s relationship in the Middle East, or the Orient, has largely enjoyed harmony.

Turkish nationalism is the main menace. Nationalism generally, is dangerous. Patriotism is different, we can’t mix the two. Nationalism is justification of some type of othering, as Edward Said might call it. It justifies the alienation of a group that is deemed not part of a nation, and worthy of exploitation. This happens historically to many groups, the Armenians being one among them.

The disintegration of the Ottoman Empires produced disasters for the Arab world in fact, contrary to the original aim of so-called liberation. The idea of freeing itself from Ottoman imperial control was not universally accepted or unanimously felt. The Ottoman Empire was relatively tolerant and secular compared to modern Saudi Arabia, for example. Ironically as previously mentioned, the Armenian population enjoyed a rather privileged status in the Ottoman Empire, due to levels of education and tenacity.

Perhaps the Ottoman Empire was not the best ruler for the Middle East, but it was unifying, and instead of being centralized on ethnic principles, it was based on a respect for the leadership of the greater Middle East. This would likely have persisted or shifted to another empire, as it has historically. But the idea that the world has modernized into nation-states, the premise of realist theory in international relations, largely ignores the reality that Western civilization functions as a unit – the Modern Holy Roman Empire if you will – with Washington D.C. serving as Rome. How else would it survive?

Perhaps this might explain why then the Middle East has become so vulnerable to the West following WWII – which might have been more about completely ending regional sovereignty in all parts of the world outside of the West.

It has really been a quest to find myself. Dear God.

Isn’t it ironic that religious minorities enjoyed more freedom under ottoman rule in ME than under ‘secular’ rule.

And that Islamic civilization was more tolerant and less vulnerable to fanaticism then too. Maybe cause they weren’t under foreign dominion?

Sure Ottoman Turkey was foreign to Arabs but nothing comparable to being ruled by British. In fact Europeans split up the Ottoman Empire, in what is known as the Sykes-Picot, a primarily British and French arrangement.

The beginning of colonialism of the ME.

The death of unity, sovereignty and tolerance ensued. Even Saudi nationalism, was a British Experiment. Maybe Germany nationalism, or Nazism was too, a form of containing in the rise of the “East”. This carries weight since Western sympathies for Nazism were not scarce; particularly as a form of anti-communism.

Modern western political theory, where realism or neorealism prevails, argues that since 1700s, or Westphalia, modern political unit is the State, and not for example, the individual, or the Empire [a collection of states]. This is rooted in temporal reality which may or may not persist. But what if the world operates as a collection of imperial organisms – not states, but states within Empires – based on cultures and/or ideologies? The West, is not a series of states united almost overtly behind American neoliberal hegemony? Does this not function as an empire, despite portrayals of it being otherwise?

We are in America now though. Safe. Thank God.

I only pray that I can be recognized as a US citizen but that means I have to marry an American or get it from my family and hopefully it will happen soon. I would also like to get some financial support or amnesty and recognition for my crafts. Perhaps I will write on Armenia one day, to explain my origin and its legacy. Return dignity to my people.

God willing.

Racism against Armenians in America goes back. I did not know it ran this deep. In the 1920s, Armenians were officially banned from owning businesses of certain kinds as part of an anti-Ottoman policy tradition maintained by the US. The Armenians possess a unique position in history, as a historically Christian nation, swallowed up by the Muslim Ottoman World. Still, their positive reputation for loyalty and competence earned them respect in the Ottoman Empire. It was not until the birth of fascist Turkish ultranationalism that anti-Armenianism became institutionalized. The Armenians have always been harmonious with Muslims and the Turks. This tradition in America, is grounded then in the anti anything that isn’t Anglo-Saxon – aka American racism or White Supremacy.

In relation to Armenian-Islamic or Armenian-Turkish relations however Armenians are not anti-Islamic or anti-Turkish. In fact many like me are from mixed religious families (obviously with the exception of certain fringe groups or peoples). The qualm is against Turkish ultranationalism and the mainly British imperial hand which leveraged it to initiate the Armenian Genocide. Today the Brits are largely replaced by the Americans. Perhaps that is why in both nations, the Genocide remains unrecognized. Neither does Israel, by the way. Peace and love to all.